SmackDown: Back to Our Roots

Round 5: Endlessly Stretches the Nameless Sand - @Wuckster

She heard a muffled scream coming from somewhere off to the left. She sprinted around the wreckage and saw three people on the ground, all of whom were absolutely swarmed with alien creatures of the same type that had attacked her. She thought she recognized Jinghausen amid the wriggling mass of legs and tails, but the other two were so buried by aliens that they were unidentifiable. They were being bitten and stung repeatedly and nasty bloody wounds were rapidly forming on any visible body parts.

"Get off of them!" Captain Langolin yelled as she charged toward the writhing pile of slimy aliens, but they didn't respond to her at all. She pulled out her blaster and started to aim it, but then lowered it helplessly. She didn't want to risk shooting any of her crew. She looked around desperately to see if there was a rock or anything she could throw, but there was nothing. Her boots were pretty solid. Maybe she could kick the damn aliens off.

"Captain," a voice called out from behind her. She turned around to see a tall, dark-skinned woman with blue hair and a skinny young man wearing thick goggles. Moretti and Ensign Clarke.

"Help me get those things off of them!" Captain Langolin shouted.

"It's no use, Captain," Moretti said. "Once they sting you, you're done for. They inject you with some sort of flesh melting venom that's lethal within minutes. I saw Travorson take a single sting to the ankle and less than five minutes later he was nothing more than a puddle of liquid goop."

"He was screaming in agony the entire time," Ensign Clarke said. "It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen."

"Then we should put our friends out of their misery and make sure those alien buggers don't come after us. Do you still have your blasters?"

"We do," Moretti said as she pulled hers out. Ensign Clarke followed suit.

"Then fire at will," Captain Langolin said. They pointed their blasters at the alien swarm and fired away until nothing remained but a smoldering pile of ash.

"That's five confirmed dead, three still alive. That leaves two crew members with status unknown," Captain Langolin said.

"I overheard Pilot Jefferson say there was a malfunction with the eject button," Moretti said. "I'm pretty sure he and Navigator Larsen went down with the ship."

"Nobody could have survived that," Captain Langolin said. "Then it's just the three of us. I'm not going to lie to you. We're in a desperate situation. We have no food and more pressingly, no water. We're not going to salvage anything from our ship and the emergency beacon was aboard, so there's little hope of anyone coming to look for us before we die of deprivation. We have no idea if this planet has any resources of nutritional value to us or if it's inhabited by anything other than murderous venom-spewing monsters. Our only hope is to make it to the wreckage of the Xylerian ship and hope it sustained less damage than we did. Maybe we can find some supplies there, although less damage might also mean more survivors, meaning we may have to tangle with who knows how many of our most hated enemies."

"This sounds impossible!" Ensign Clarke said.

"Anything is possible, until the moment that it isn't," Captain Langolin said. "All we can do is try. Now say a prayer to whatever gods you believe in and let's head off."

*

The sun beat down relentlessly on them as it travelled steadily across the sky while they walked across endless miles of green sand dunes. A few more purple clouds dotted the sky and an occasional slight cool breeze offered them a sliver of relief from the heat, but they were all parched with thirst and losing valuable moisture through sweat. Their energy was quickly dwindling, but Captain Langolin continued to spur them on, despite a dryness in her throat that was beyond anything she had ever experienced before.