Full Mission Roll:
4 Eggs, 12 Gunk Seeds, Haz 3, Salt Pits
Warning: Parasites, Anomaly: Golden Bugs
Machine Event: Omen Modular Exterminator
Extra Resources: Error Cube x1
Same Mission as Chapter 5
Applejack tapped the hair-trigger on her flamethrower, dousing a group of approaching Grunts with sticky orange flame. They screeched and howled in pain, but she knew that it had to be done. The six-legged insects would kill her without a second thought if they got the chance--and if they could even think.
She torched the parasites that emerged, too. There were a bunch of the little buggers, and they occupied her attention for longer than she liked. A swarm of Grunts crawled the cavern walls to her left, but before she could turn her flamethrower to bear, they fell to the floor under an orange cloud of explosive gas.
Rarity calmly loaded another grenade into her launcher and leveled it to aim at another bunched-up group. A quick pull of the trigger blasted them sky-high, giving the girls a bit of breathing room on that side.
Applejack smirked and turned to glance at Rainbow and Sunset’s side of Molly. A ton of bugs were coming down on Sunset, but Rainbow Dash seemed to handle most of hers. Sunset threw a grenade, spawning a light blue electric bubble thing that slowed down the bugs caught in its influence, and ran to the side, diving over a couple bugs into a roll as she pulled out her secondary weapon, a double-barrel sawed-off shotgun. Applejack torched the bugs without hesitation.
Sunset screamed and dropped to the ground to put out the fire starting to engulf her. Applejack released her trigger, horrified, and nearly ran to help, but was quickly stopped by another large group of Glyphids on her right. She shook her head and pulled the trigger.
“The wave is petering out! Wipe out the rest and get on with it.”
The cave seemed to calm down significantly after Mission Control’s announcement. It was only another minute before the incoming stream of Glyphids finally stopped. Applejack ran over to Sunset, who was starting to pick herself back up.
“Ah’m so sorry, Sunset! Ah didn’t mean to hit you!”
“It’s okay,” Sunset groaned. “The shield took most of the damage.”
“Friendly fire, am I right?” Rainbow Dash laughed, playfully punching Applejack’s shoulder.
“Rainbow Dash!” Rarity admonished. “This is a very serious matter. Sunset could’ve been killed!”
“But she wasn’t.”
“That’s not the point!” Rarity’s face flushed, and she seemed to struggle with rage. “We must be aware of where we’re shooting. If we’re not, we won’t survive this planet.”
“Rarity’s right,” Sunset said as she picked a few ashes out of her hair and dumped her bag’s worth of gold into Molly. “No harm done, Applejack. Let’s just be a bit more careful from now on. All of us.”
Applejack smiled in relief, but she couldn’t help feeling a bit worried. Even if she’d been forgiven, she’d still set her friend on fire, and she felt like she needed to make up for it. Maybe an apple pie when they returned to the station? That could work.
She shook those thoughts from her head as she followed Sunset’s example and emptied her bag, followed by a quick trip to the resupply to stock up. They had a job to do, and the smallest distraction could end horribly.
Just get the eggs and get out. That’s all you have to do. Worry about Sunset when you’re back in the pod, heading to the space station.
“Hey, Applejack!” Rainbow Dash called. “Got a big ball of goop for you to dig over here!”
She sighed. “Ah’m comin’, don’t you worry.” She jogged across the white-crusted red stone and clambered up a couple of Rarity’s platforms to reach where Rainbow had gone. Another of Sunset’s flares fired across the cavern to bathe them in renewed light.
“Gosh darn, Rainbow, you coulda just dug with your pickaxe!” she yelled over the noise as she drilled into the goop. “This dirt here is real soft.”
As her drills jostled the egg loose and wound down, she stumbled as another ear-piercing wail echoed off the walls. She held her arms out for balance, steadying herself against the rock she’d dug until the wailing stopped.
“Rainbow, get ready! We maht have to shoot some bugs real soon.”
Rainbow Dash didn’t answer, but her minigun wound up and began pelting the wall above Applejack. A couple larger explosions rocked her footing, but nothing too serious appeared. She grabbed her secondary weapon, a pretty standard semiautomatic pistol, as a couple bugs crawled into the opening she’d carved with her drills. A few shots in quick succession killed the already-wounded Grunts.
The danger gone, she carried the egg out of the goop and deposited it into Molly. Rainbow Dash seemed much more alert now, and her now-quiet minigun was pointed directly at an brownish-orange creature lying still on the ground. Its head looked like it had been bashed in by a bullet or two. Other bits of probably similar creatures were scattered around the area.
“What is that thing?” Applejack asked.
“I don’t know, but there were ones just like it, and they all blew up,” Rainbow replied, her voice a little shaken. “I’m waiting for this one to, too.”
“If it was gonna explode, it probably woulda already.” Applejack carefully lowered Rainbow’s aim to the ground. “It’s dead, alright? Let’s get these other eggs and get outta here. Just two more left to go.” She scanned the fairly-well-illuminated cave and saw a large metal platform in the ground nearby. “Say, what’s this?”
Rainbow, shaken out of whatever had held her mind, joined her at the platform. “Is that Deep Rock equipment? Did they give us extra stuff?”
“Ah don’t think so,” Applejack replied as she looked at her laser pointer. “Says it’s an ‘Omen Modular Exterminator’. Ah don’t know what in tarnation that’s supposed to mean.”
Rainbow walked over to a white box next to the Omen Modular Exterminator and lasered it. “This thing’s a Core Infuser. Know what that is?”
“Why are you askin’ me? Ah know less about this stuff than you, and you didn’t even do the readin’ on your own class!”
“I have the minigun. Do I really need to do the reading?”
“Yes!”
Rainbow mumbled something under her breath that Applejack didn’t quite catch, but she let it slide. They had to focus. She took one last look at the Exterminator and frowned.
“Ah think we need a key, and it’s not like we have one. Let’s just get to Sunset and Rarity and find these last eggs. Ah’d rather not stay longer than Ah need to.”