Starbound: A Space Odyssey 24 The Erchius Mining Facility Incident 12

*Bang, bang, bang...*

The momentary confusion allowed Lenny and John to take various shots at the Moontant.

*ROARRRRRRRR!!!!!*

It gave up and decided to swing the hammer at the one that closest, it was Lenny.

*Bam*

"Puu..." Lenny was. .h.i.t by the hammer and was sent flying backward while spraying a mouthful of yellow plasma.

"LENNY!" John shouted. He took his sniper and carefully aimed at the Moontant's head. At this moment it seemed for John like the whole world slowed down. It was a wonderful sensation. It felt like he opened his own world and was in full control of it.

*Bang*

He pressed the trigger, and he watched as the energy bullet slowly left the muzzle and traveled toward its target.

John aimed at a tiny hole in the Moontant's helmet that Lenny had made. The bullet easily traveled the distance and found its way toward the target.

The monster stopped moving for a while after it was. .h.i.t, and then it fell flat on the ground.

John was shaken off from that weird sensation, [What was that?] He asked himself.

"Lenny" John searched for the Novakid and found him on the ground, a few meters away from him, "Are you okay?" John concernedly asked.

*Cough, cough...* Lenny started to cough some of his yellow plasma, "I'm not fine. But in a few seconds, I'll be." He struggled to get up, but he gave up after a few attempts, he stayed laid on the stone ground, "Can you get my hat, please?"

"Here it goes." John gave the brown cowboy hat back to Lenny, "Let's hope that aren't any more of this type of Moontant..." John said.

"Yeah... I don't know if I can handle a few more hits."

After a momentary rest, John approached Lenny, "Are you good now ?"

Lenny stood up, "Yeah... Let's continue."

They walked carefully deeper into the mine. But for their surprise, there were no more Moontants around the place.

"Now... What... The... f.u.c.k... Is that?" Lenny stared at the giant purple crystal floating in the middle of the room in the deepest part of the mine.

"I don't know, but-" John stopped speaking when he saw that the crystal had started moving.

The Erchius Horror slowly turned around, revealing the giant eye that was behind the crack from the Mining Laser Cannon.

The eye glared at them for a while before it started to glow with an even stronger purple light.

"s.h.i.+t!" John and Lenny started to run in different directions.

*ZUMMM* *ZUMMM*

It was of no use. The Erchius Horror divided the laser into two, and the laser streams followed them.

John jumped behind a rock and protected himself. He could feel the rock that he was hiding behind was getting more and more scorched because of the laser.

When the laser beam was over John got out of the hiding and swiftly started to look for the Mining Laser Cannon.

Lenny got out of his hiding spot and started to distract the monster.

*Bang*

He first tried to take a few shots at it, but it didn't work as planned, "Force field? Really?" Lenny stared in disbelief at the invisible field around the purple crystal that was able to easily deflect the bullet.

*Bang* *Whoosh*

With an explosion followed by a sound of laser cutting through the air, a laser stream hit the Erchius Horror that was about to shot a beam at Lenny.

*SCREECHH*

The Erchius Horror screeched in pain. The sound was loud enough to make John, who was way far from the monster, dizzy.

He had found the Mining Laser Cannon, used the key he found with the young miner and fired the cannon.

The monster turned its rage-filled eye at John. The monster charged another purple beam.

John also started to charge Mining Laser Cannon.

Both of them finished at the same and they fired.

*Bang* *Whoosh*

*ZUMMM*

*BOOOOOOOOM!!!*

The blue beam faced again the purple one. Both of them were kept in balance while the clash was ongoing, but the Erchius Horror started to lose power and slowly the blue beam arrived the opening that the first laser beam made.

*SCREEEEEECH*

The laser destroyed the eye within the crystal, and the monster started to screech in agony again.

*ZUM* *ZUM* *ZUM* *ZUM*

Series of unfocused purple laser started to leave from the hole while the crystal started to float everywhere, hitting the walls and making giant pieces of rock fly around.

*Bam* *bam* *Bam*

John hid behind what appeared to be a Mining Drill.

...

Once the screech sounds and collisions stopped, John walked out from his hiding spot.

The first thing he saw was the giant crystal that was dropped in the ground. The only difference was that it had lost almost all of its l.u.s.ter.

"Lenny!!" John shouted.

"I'm here!" John heard Lenny's voice coming from the other side of the Erchius Horror.

John circled around the crystal and found out that Lenny was stuck beneath a giant rock.

"Can you give me a hand?" Lenny asked.

"Sure." John took out the Matter Manipulator and slowly absorbed the piece of rock, "Done."

"Ahhhhhh... Thanks" Lenny moved his limbs trying to see if there was something out of ordinary. He pat his hand around his body and cleaned the dust, "I'm good now."

"So..." John looked around and saw that still had a lot of Erchius Crystals in the walls, "Do we have to mine this stuff ourselves?"

"Can't you use the Mining Laser Cannon?"

"No... It was damaged by one of the Erchius Horror's lasers when it went berserk." John helplessly shook his head.

"And what about your Matter Manipulator?"

"It won't work. The Erchius Crystal is to hard to mine it. I would need to upgrade it before I can mine it."

Lenny looked around and soon spotted the Mining Drill, "How about that?"

"We don't have the key, and even if we had, we don't know how to operate it."

"No. That's not what I meant. There must have storage inside the drill, right?"

"Yeah! That's true!" John was elated.

He walked toward the giant Mining Drill and opened the back compartment.

The moment he opened it, a bright purple glow came from the inside. It was Erchius Crystals.

"Here it is..." John took a palm-sized crystal and inspected it, "They look good."

"Let's take them and get out of here." Lenny hurried John.

"Okay..." John stored 20 Erchius Crystals and closed the compartment, "We can finally get out of here."

"Right... We need to go to the surface. The Retriever can't get any signal here." Lenny looked at the Retriever.

"And what about the jamming?" John and Lenny were already by the elevator.

"It was coming from that guy... You... You know."

"Oh..." John looked at the inventory and saw the object that looked like an old fas.h.i.+oned cellphone with an antenna, "This thing?" John asked Lenny.

"Yes, this is a short-range Teleport Signal Jammer. A quite expensive device." Lenny instantly recognized the object, "I wonder... What he meant when he said he was doing his mission."

"It doesn't matter for now. I just want to get out of this place as soon as I can."