Dustin Smith and the Corner Office of Doom

Their mutual verbal expressions of love had led Dustin and Bleu naturally towards a slow physical expression of their feelings, the slime girl riding him with gentle rocking motions once they returned to the shuttle to sleep and found the place foggy with the scent of Rye and Sammie’s intimacy. That, and the moaning sounds coming from the bunk where the two women were entwined; there wasn’t really room for an orgy on any of the shuttle’s bunks, but there was certainly room for two pairs of people to make good use of the sleeping space.

The next morning dawned early, the first light of sun hitting the sands outside the trees where they were encamped with a fury that raised the air temperature to scorching not long after Dustin first poked his head outside. Leaving Sammie after breakfast to guard the ship in the event they needed a rescue, Dustin and the others slowly picked their way across the soft dry ground between the trees as they worked their way towards the location Rye had marked as being the best site for them to investigate the ruins of the civilization that had once occupied this world.

Sand shifted underfoot, and despite the reassurances he’d received from the scientists on his crew Dustin was not exactly fully comfortable with the idea that a giant burrowing predator would avoid trying to get a Dustin-shaped snack just because he happened to be standing in between some trees. The others seemed to share his concerns, the group moving from tree to tree rather than in the larger gaps between the tall plants as they worked their way onward towards the ruins.

On arrival at their destination - thankfully unmolested by giant monsters - Dustin and the others paused to review what they were looking at. “Looks like a collapsed skyscraper.” Dustin mused, gesturing to the mess of twisted metal, glass and stone in front of them. “Though the stone suggests a smaller structure, unless that’s debris from somewhere else or the foundations?”

Rye ran a scanner over the nearest part of the building where it protruded from the ground. “Larger structure with mostly metal and concrete floors on top, judging by the readings I’m getting. It’s gotten all messed up, that’s some of the foundation stone you’re seeing that’s been blown to the top somehow - but it seems hollow on the inside. Wanna scout around, see if we can find a way in Dusty?”

Dustin nodded, although before they did so he rummaged in his pack and retrieved a small folding pulse weapon he’d included for just this sort of a situation. “Just in case we find a way in - I doubt an artificial cave would be without it’s residents, and I want to make sure I’m armed if any of them are unfriendly.” He said, seeing Bleu’s raised eyebrow at the firearm.

The trio picked their way carefully through twisted and rusted metal; while Rye’s scan reported that beneath the ground the structure was intact, the bits of it that were exposed to the elements had not been treated kindly by centuries of sand, wind and the trees growing all around. Even with the limited rainfall on the planet, metal exposed to the air still had it’s share of rust blooming on it - and it was this bloom that let them find the entrance.

Partially hidden behind a fallen tree, they wouldn’t have spotted it were it not for the deep red rust pattern standing out from the bleached-white tree-trunk. A cursory sweep with Dustin’s firearm at the fore revealed that what they had found was the shattered remnants of an elevator shaft; torches pointed down into the darkness showed it extending at a gently sloping angle through the entire building, with what looked like murky water at the very bottom.

“Alright, Dusty. No monsters immediately apparent, easy access to all the floors - things are looking good. Ya think we should go nose around in there first, or have a scout about on the surface, see if we can find anything of interest that got blown out when this place fell over… and has somehow survived on the ground without getting buried in the sand over the past however many hundreds or thousands of years.” Rye shook her head in answer to her own question as she finished talking. “Right, lemmie just dig the rest of the torches out of my pack.”

With the additional torches illuminating their path, the trio began the slow and somewhat slippery descent down the shaft. Dust and sand had seeped in from outside, and their footing was treacherous even with the gentle slope. “Watch your footing on this bit, it’s bumpy.” Dustin said as they reached what was clearly one of the stopping points for the long-defunct lift. Stepping carefully over the indentations in the sides of the shaft wall, he gestured to where the doorway hung ajar. “Check inside or keep going down?”

Bleu pointed her scanner in the direction of the door. “Check inside. There’s signs of some smaller animals in there, better make sure there’s nothing bigger that’ll get between us and the exit” the doctor said after a moment, holstering her scanner and scrambling between the half open doors. “It’s clear on this side” she said, even as Dustin swore about her going first and hurried to follow.

With Rye following close behind, Dustin scraped his way between the ancient doors and paused. Due to the fallen angle of the building, they were standing on what had once been one of the walls - but ahead of him, still bolted to the floor that was now rising up to his left were rows of neat desks. The ground in front of him was covered with debris - some clearly blown from the desks when the building collapsed, while the rest looked to have been dragged in from the outside by the small skittering things that darted backwards away from the harsh lights of their torches.

Not wanting to risk getting caught out if there was anything larger lurking (or if the smaller things turned out to be pack hunters) the three of them stuck together as they picked their way through the room, pausing regularly to allow Rye to investigate some of the mounds of rubbish. “I think we’ll be able to get some stuff from these, Dusty.” The bunny girl commented, tucking yet another bit of hardware into her already bulging backpack. “They don’t seem to have moved beyond magnetic storage, and while it’ll have been shot to hell by whatever the Fractals did to wipe them out, I should be able to recover something.”

As Rye finished strapping down her backpack, a disturbance in the stacks made them turn rapidly. The skittering creatures were all hurrying away from the entrance to the room - a darker tide in the gloom. “That can’t be good.” Dustin said, flicking the safety on his weapon off and pointing it back the way they’d come. “Looks like a predator’s turned up judging by the way they’re moving.”

Bleu whipped her scanner out instantly, the device sweeping over the path they’d taken before freezing. “Got it. Looks like it’s too small to be a major threat to us, but keep your gun up just in case there’s more than one or I’ve got a read on the wrong thing.” The Queri medic’s words were precise, while she waved with her free hand for Rye to also scan. “Carbon and a temp differential from the background will pick it up” She hissed to the engineer, clearly not wanting to lose her lock on whatever she’d found - but also wanting to scan more in case it wasn’t whatever had caused the smaller animals to run for the hills.

Rye’s scanner wasn’t normally configured for picking up living signals, but after a moment’s tweaking she too had it pointed at whatever Bleu had found. “One signal, I can keep track of that” the Rabyth said, pointing with her free hand so that Dustin could keep his gun trained on whatever the thing was out there in the darkness. Bleu adjusted her device and swept it back and forward a few more times before nodding. “Just the one, about the size of a small dog. Should be harmless to us unless it’s got any venom or stingers. Keep your flashlights trained this way, it’ll be here soon.”

Bright torches were trained in the direction of the creature - which eventually emerged from the darkness a short while later, giant eyes blinking in the bright light as it undulated forward. “Some kind of arthropod.” Bleu observed. “Long bug.” Rye nodded, while Dustin tentatively raised his weapon. The creature was indeed long, with a segmented body and multiple legs behind two massive eyes on stalks at one end that sat somewhat ponderously above a set of prehensile tendrils. It kind of reminded Dustin of an exhibit he’d seen in a museum once of an Anomalocaris, an ancient sea dweller.

The creature shuffled forward slowly; as it did so Bleu frowned. “It appears to be injured, Captain.” She mused, adjusting her scanner before pointing at the creature’s back where a chunk of it’s chitin had been ripped away. “Wounds are consistent with some of the flying pests we detected from orbit.” Crouching down, she rummaged in her pack and produced a nutrient bar, offering it carefully towards the animal. “Scans show it has no way of harming us - it uses body weight to hunt and we’re too big to be threatened” she added as the creature’s tendrils snuffled over the bar before scooping it towards a narrow, tiny mouth with every indication of relish.

Dustin glanced at the expressions on the faces of his doctor and chief engineer and shook his head. “I thought it was humans that were supposed to pack-bond with random animals. You want to take this thing back to the ship, don’t you.”

Rye raised her hands “no, no, Dusty. I mean…” she lowered them again “…it is kinda cute, for a bug. Look at it’s little eyes and those tendrils with their fronds.” Bleu snorted at the bunny girl’s words, finishing her feeding of the creature before standing back upright.

“Rye might be in denial, but this thing is fascinating. It’s not showing any signs of being wild, probably because the only things big enough to do it serious damage are the mega-fauna out beyond the woods. It’s practically a pet already. I would like to keep it to study… and alright, yes, as a pet Dustin. What do you think?”

Dustin sighed and nodded. “One pet bug. As long as us having a pet insect doesn’t weird out Trea’k or Yril’k too much. Regardless, we can take it back to the shuttle and you can patch it’s wound up - that’ll be easy enough.” With his agreement secured, Bleu set another nutrient bar down for the creature which purred happily to itself as she rummaged in her pack for a medspray. “This should make it docile until we get back. More docile, I mean.” The doctor announced as she applied the device to the creature’s wound.

A moment later, the little centipedal alien slumped contentedly onto one side, falling limp as Bleu lifted it and draped it over her shoulders like a scarf. “Are we done here for today? I’d like to get this thing back somewhere I can scan it properly without worrying the roof might cave in and drown me in sand.”

One hurried conversation later, and the three scrambled back up into the early afternoon sunshine. Dustin winced as they emerged from the ruins; after the cool underground space, the oppressive desert heat seemed somehow even worse than before as he led his little party and their acquisitions back towards where they’d left Sammie and the shuttle. As he walked, he watched the way Rye and Bleu fussed over the centipede and wondered to himself why he’d never thought of getting a pet for the crew before.