The Mouse

Posted on Wed Feb 3rd, 2021 @ 11:05pm by Lieutenant Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell

Mission: The Jungle
Location: Jungle
Timeline: Current

Never ending. The cliff face stretched in a relative curve beyond the horizon. As the sun approached its pinnacle and the heat became thicker than the humidity if that were possible, Bonnie was ready to give up. She had yet to find a running water source, a cave or other shelter, nothing of use.

As the day marched on she began to wear down, stopping only once to wrap her wrist tighter. Lucky enough she had not come across any traps or hunters since the one she fell upon. Perhaps they weren't willing to mess with someone so dangerous, she mused to herself. And to think, she hadn't even fired the rifle yet.

Her stomach growled for the third time this hour. She knew she would have to find a resting spot soon. Then as if her thoughts were projected into the environment itself, a clearing appeared. A rock to sit on rested neatly in the center, a beam of sunlight shone down upon it. On top of the large rock sat an Engineer’s toolkit in a Federation case. Too good to be true, she approached with caution.

Her eyes darted to and fro, her head swiveling like a bobblehead. She stepped to within a foot, reached out her unbroken hand and the moment she touched the tools a rope net rose up around her, lifting her up 3 meters into the air right above the rock. She was compressed, but she maintained her grip upon the tools. "Shit." She cried out.

As tight as the ropes felt they were not inflexible and so allowed for her to shift and adjust, albeit not easily. Using her good arm she brought the rifle around her to bear at her midsection where she could fire at the ropes. She cut one and the net shifted. It was enough for her to realize if she fell she would fall upon the rock below.

What other choice did she have? She imagined the ropes breaking and her trying to catch them to slow her fall but with a bum hand her odds were reduced by half. Pressing on she cut another rope. The net shifted more. One more would give her a hole to slide out or would be enough to drop the whole net.

She stared at the rock knowing her fall would shatter bones. Then it registered, she increased power on the rifle to full, aimed down at the rock and fired. It dissolved in a blaze of red light leaving only soft ground below. It would hurt but not near as bad. Adjusting the rifle she fired once more, splitting the net.

She fell, shoulders first into the ground below. As she lay there for a moment she had to admit, it hurt. But she would heal and now she had the tools to fix the helmet and discover what it was capable of.

TBC